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A review
After using the observatory now for about 6 weeks I have been able to review it's performance.
Areas to improve: I should have made ther roof overhang at each side of the
observatory to make it more weatherproof there. There are cutouts in the fibre cement cladding for the wheels to pass through and 2 of these leaked when it rained. I have since added some more flashings and probably that is fixed now.
I was limited to the size of the observatory and overall it's fine but the counterweights can be a bit in the road of easy movement around the observatory at times. The observatory is 2.8 metres square so 3 metres square would have been nice.
Other than that it's working out great. I particularly like the sliding gate track and wheels from Bunnings. I can move the half roof segments with my finger. It also rolls very quietly which is important when neighbours aren't that far away.
In terms of how it looks in the backyard of new modern house, it looks good. The bifold window I picked up second hand makes it look a lot better and also assists in cool downs.
The joining flashing where the 2 roof halves meet works well and has not been a problem.
The centre locking latches have also been quite easy to use but they need to be positioned accurately otherwise they can be a harder to engage.
The metal purlin frame and aluminium 50mm square tube trusses for the roof work really well. The fibre cement cladding looks modern and matches parts of the house.
So yeah overall I am very happy with it and it is very practical and comfortable. It's optimised the viewing angle as I have a line of trees to the north which block my view. But then that is not much different to my last observatory at Kurrajong NSW where the light dome form Sydney to the east meant you really had to wait until the object was high and near the zenith. My dark site observatory is at the top of a hill so it has virtually any angle to view.
The floor is simply a slab about 100mm thick. The frame is metal purlin, the walls are Hardi Plank and the roof is corrugated colorbond matching the house. The roof frame is made out of 50mm x 3mm thick aluminium square tube. I laid a pvc tube in the slab when it was poured to get access to power which is just outside the observatory on the house wall.
Next step would be to run a cat 5 cable form the observatory computer to inside the house like I did for my last observatory which meant I could monitor an imaging run very easily from inside the house using remote desktop in Windows.
I thought I would do a write up as it might help someone who is looking to build a home observatory.
Feel free to ask me any questions.
Greg
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